


Sink / Settle

by mirawonderfulstar



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Codependency, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Other, Purple Prose, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 20:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19363828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirawonderfulstar/pseuds/mirawonderfulstar
Summary: Crowley has been drowning for six thousand years.





	Sink / Settle

The worst part of it is knowing Aziraphale feels the same.

If Aziraphale didn’t love him, didn’t want him in the way Crowley knows he wants him, he might be able to let it go. Might be able to be content with their almost, their not-quite, the thing that roars between them like the sea, vast, dark, threatening to swallow them both up and leave nothing in its wake. Sometimes Crowley thinks that the only thing keeping him moored is the dance, the denial. He’s grateful for it. He _is_. But…

But Aziraphale looks at him over dinner, over wine, as they talk about eternity, and he can’t help but wonder how long they can possibly go on like this. Is this what forever looks like? Aziraphale, so close, and always just out of reach? So close, and the look in his eyes an echo of the feeling in Crowley’s chest, the feeling of rushing, of flooding into each other, two fathomless, ancient things carrying a desire from the beginning of time, just barely held back by a wall they’ve both agreed without speaking must stay up. Crowley doesn’t know, sometimes, whether he’s the sea, or the dike, or that child with his hand in the crack holding back the water. Maybe he’s all three, somehow. Maybe they both are.

Maybe he’s Tantalus, standing in the water, wanting to drink and drink and _drown_ himself, only to find the tide’s gone out when he reaches down. And the ocean may yet be one solid mass of oysters, Crowley doesn’t know, but he does know that he’d do anything, _anything,_ for Aziraphale. Even let the weight of it crush him, push him down. It’s not like he has much further to sink.

 

//

 

He knows he’s hurting Crowley. He _knows_ , and he wants so desperately to stop, but the truth is that he’s not sure what would be worse for him: telling Crowley he loves him, or telling Crowley he doesn’t.

He does. He does, he does, he does.

God, how he loves Crowley. An eternity, and they fit together like they were made for it. Like coming home. Comfortable. Warm. A matched set.

Aziraphale doesn’t know how to change things without changing things. He doesn’t know how to give Crowley what he needs without hurting him, because the way Crowley loves him, the way Crowley acts out that love, doesn’t seem to need anything at all from Aziraphale to keep going. And he doesn’t know what to _do_.

Crowley would still love him if they carried on like this forever. Crowley would still love him if the stars burned out and the universe went cold and Aziraphale wonders, somewhere inside himself, if Crowley doesn’t want things to change. If Crowley doesn’t just want something to worship. If Crowley would still love him if they weren’t what they are, if he wasn’t an angel and Crowley wasn’t a demon. If he just wants to feel closer to some perceived light. It makes Aziraphale _ache_ , the idea that he’s symbolic, somehow, to the one person he’s ever, ever been able to see as more than that. Crowley is the only thing Aziraphale has ever loved just for himself, just because he wants to, and it _hurts_.

And it’s easier to ignore, to pretend that he’s happy with the way things are now, rather than risk losing that safety, that comfort. Easier not to stir up whatever it is that they have between them. Easier to settle.


End file.
